UNC Looking For Head Coaching Experience
One of the candidates being mentioned for the UNC coaching job is assistant and former Tar Heel player Hubert Davis.
Davis has been on Roy Williams’ staff since 2012 but has never been a head coach. That could be a hurdle, based on A.D. Bubba Cunningham’s comments.
“It is important,” Cunningham said of head coaching experience. “I've always said that my preference is I'd like to hire people that have done it before — head coaches. But it's not a requirement. There's a lot of different attributes that people bring to the table that need to be considered for it. And you know, if there was a perfect person out there, I'd like to find them. But there's going to be pros and cons of every person out there, whether they have a Carolina connection or not or have been a head coach or not, whether they played in the NBA or not, whether they've coached in the NBA or not. There's a lot of different qualifications for the job. As I mentioned, you know, it's the time, it is the circumstance, it is the right person at the right time, right? Roy talked about being the right man for the job. I do think there are periods of time where certain attributes are going to outweigh another, but we'll consider all of them."
Cunningham said he didn’t start the coaching search until the news was made public on Thursday.
“Typically, I would like to reach out, reach people, but Roy really wanted to wait and tell the team first, tell his staff, and hold the press conference,” he said. “So, I didn't think it was appropriate to tell anybody. I didn't tell my wife until yesterday. She's not home, but I flew home from Indianapolis yesterday. In fact, I called my assistant and said, 'I need a flight home on Wednesday, but I can't tell you why.' So no, I kept it in strict confidence and started receiving phone calls and making phone calls today."
Cunningham said he didn’t have a list of names in his desk drawer, should this moment ever arise.
"We all know who the best coaches are in college basketball,” he said. “We know the best coaches in the NBA. I mean, if I could pull genie out of a bottle and say, 'Hey, look at this, John Wooden has come back to life, and he's going to be our head coach.' I mean, it's a pretty, pretty narrow set of people when you say you've got the best job in college sports. You guys know who everyone would have in mind. I'm not going to try to trick anybody and say there's this sleeper out there. That's the reality of the business that we're in. Of course, I paid attention. I actually paid attention a lot more when I was at Ball State because we turned over coaches all the time. Coaches don't turn over Carolina. So you get plenty of time to think about it, you got a lot of time to think, and less time to act. So I better start acting pretty quickly here."
